U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,892 discloses water-based styrenic inks adapted for use in coating cellulosic substrates under ambient conditions.
Inks and coatings that are applied to articles that are primarily used outside such as boxes, containers, sacks and bags which must exhibit a high degree of alkali resistance, acid resistance and/or water softener resistance.
However, commercially available ink and coating compositions intended for outside use typically contain hazardous materials such as aziridine or metal oxide/alkoxide crosslinkers. Consequently, it would be advantageous to provide compositions that do not contain such hazardous materials.
It has now been found that compositions comprising a crosslinkable acrylic resin emulsion and an epoxy ester resin dispersion do not require the incorporation of hazardous materials and exhibit good weatherability when applied to articles primarily for outdoor use.
In particular, the compositions according to the present invention provide coatings that exhibit product resistance properties which are equal to commercially available inks whilst eliminating the need to use aziridine or metal oxide/alkoxide crosslinkers, and thus eliminating the health and safety issues associated with these materials.